


More Than Blood

by starslinger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27133036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starslinger/pseuds/starslinger
Summary: Bellatrix reflects on a love she didn't expect and doesn't deserve.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 4
Kudos: 91





	More Than Blood

_I love you more than ever, more than time and more than love,_

_I love you more than money and more than the stars above,_

_Love you more than madness, more than waves upon the sea,_

_Love you more than life itself, you mean that much to me._

If you had told her — twenty, ten, even five years ago — that this is what her life would look like, she’d have laughed at you. Or, more likely, killed you.

Bellatrix Lestrange did not _love_ , not like that, not anymore. Even back then, she had only ever loved with great reluctance: loved a family she never quite trusted to stay; loved a husband she never quite trusted to fulfill her beyond duty and strategy.

Love might have grown there, taken root and sprouted into something beautiful, had the garden not been poisoned too early by prejudice and ambition and prison and a devotion to something greater, something massive, something leagues beyond love. It was only later, after tasting something sweeter, that Bellatrix realized it had never been love at all.

_Ever since you walked right in, the circle's been complete,_

_I've said goodbye to haunted rooms and faces in the street,_

_To the courtyard of the jester which is hidden from the sun,_

_I love you more than ever and I haven't yet begun._

She remembers the beginning, the first time she recognized the peculiar feeling in her chest for what it was. A particularly gruesome episode, brought on by a Ministry-mandated Legilimency session gone south after Aurors ventured past the agreed-upon mental boundaries without her consent. She’d thrown them out of her head with such force she’d blown apart half the room — and then the mudblood was there, and she was _screaming_ — Bellatrix whirled around, gripped by _fear,_ of all things, fear that she was hurt, fear that she’d somehow caused her pain. She reached out to her —

“What the _FUCK_ is wrong with you?!”

Bellatrix balked, hands in midair, as Hermione brandished her wand, screeching: “You said — we _agreed —_ you _swore_ you wouldn’t — you gave me your _WORD!_ “

When she took aim at an Auror, Bellatrix actually laughed, relieved and delighted that the target of Hermione’s ire was, for once, someone other than herself.

“How _DARE_ you!” the girl screamed, teeth bared, face red with fury. _She is beautiful_ , Bellatrix thought, not for the first time.

But it wouldn’t do for them _both_ to end up in Azkaban. So she caught the younger woman by the wrist and around the waist, holding her back. “Hush,” she hissed, clutching her close, breathing her in. “Hush. It’s alright. I’m alright.”

_You breathed on me and made my life a richer one to live,_

_When I was deep in poverty you taught me how to give,_

_Dried the tears up from my dreams and pulled me from the hole,_

_Quenched my thirst and satisfied the burning in my soul._

“Mipsey gave me a Christmas present.”

“Did she?” Bellatrix asked, not looking up from her book, wondering which of her recommendations the elf had gone with. “That was kind of her.”

Hermione frowned at the gift in her hands. “She also said you’d given her the week off.”

“Mm.” Bellatrix flicked her eyes over to the box. Ah, the scarf, then. Well done, Mipsey.

“A significant raise as well.”

That finally made Bellatrix look up. “Does that upset you?”

“No,” the girl shook her head, setting the unexpected gift on the nearest bookshelf. “No, of course not.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “It’s just… you’ve already given so much, Bella. The reparations, selling the manors—“

“You and I both know none of that was freely given,” Bellatrix interrupted, fighting to keep any bitterness out of her voice.

“Yes, but… that’s exactly it, isn’t it?” Hermione pressed gently, moving across the room towards the dark witch. “There are prices to pay and you’ve paid them. You don’t have to keep punishing yourself.”

Bellatrix stared at her for a long moment. “I am not punishing myself,” she said quietly. “Things given unwillingly don’t count as giving.”

She sees the moment it hits Hermione — that her motivation had been uncharacteristically altruistic, and not borne of self-loathing — and bristles with irritation, feeling like she’d been caught out even when she’d tried to do something _good._ “Now, if you’re quite finished interrogating me on how I spend what’s left of my own money—“

But Hermione had made it to her chair, and was sliding onto her lap, winding her arms round her neck, and kissing her soundly. Bellatrix met her fiercely, throwing her book to one side and losing her hands in the woman atop her.

It had hurt, Hermione’s brief assumption that she was incapable of doing anything good without uglier motivations — especially when it was precisely _because_ of Hermione that she made this decision. But Bellatrix knew she deserved as much. She did not deserve this woman, did not deserve the chance to worship anything as sweet and good as the soft flesh of her throat or the warmth at the small of her back. But she had it, she thought, clutching the girl closer still, drowning in her heat; _I have her_. How many other terrible people had been given chances they didn’t deserve? She would let herself have this, have her, spend the rest of her life earning the right to keep her.

_You gave me babies one, two, three, what is more, you saved my life,_

_Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, your love cuts like a knife,_

_My thoughts of you don't ever rest, they'd kill me if I lie,_

_I'd sacrifice the world for you and watch my senses die._

It wasn’t all sweetness. Her little wife certainly gave as good as she got; in duels, in debates, in bed. It was what had originally drawn Bellatrix to her, the unexpected mettle, the fire that lit up her eyes and consumed her entire body when she witnessed ignorance or injustice or cruelty — all things Bellatrix proselytized in spades when they first began their horrid _rehabilitation_ sessions. She would dream of those first hours, dream of dark timelines where Hermione gave up on her, left her soul doomed to die chained to a wall in Azkaban; their love never realized, their children never born. Worse still were the nights she dreamt of all the pain she caused, so much to so many, including her beloved. She’d held her down and tried to destroy the thing she loved most in the world, long before she ever considered her human at all. But even more than those memories, she fears the false ones her mind creates; the nightmares where she finishes carving the slur into a limp arm and looks up to find that instead of Hermione, she’s mutilated one of their children.

Sometimes her wife wakes in the middle of the night to find Bellatrix watching her. She reaches for her, and Bella meets her halfway, leaning over her, ever the protector, even when subconsciously seeking comfort herself.

_It’s okay,_ Hermione would whisper, eyes glowing up at her in the half-moonlight as Bella’s fingers, which had once hurt her so terribly, gently traced her face. _It’s over. We’re here now. We’re safe._

They never spoke of these moments once they were done. They hung like dreams in the space between one day to the next. Hermione would press her forehead to Bella’s, breathe the same air, and try to stay awake with her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Bella would shake her head, brushing their noses together, kissing her gently. “Go back to sleep, darling.”

Hermione would pout and put up a fight for a few valiant minutes, but she was not old friends with insomnia the way Bellatrix was, and soon the honeyed eyes would flutter closed— sometimes aided by her lover’s cheating fingers, weaving cozy, sleepy magic over her skin, teasing the spots she knew would slip her into slumber — and her breathing would even out. The older woman would watch her a while longer, drinking in her features, reveling in her safety and comfort and warmth.

It was certainly nice to feel forgiven. But the secret was that she would do it all again. If this was the only path, the only world where they could make an end together, she would kill every single person a thousand times over to ensure life led her here, to this moment, to know what it felt like to hold this woman in her arms, to be able to watch her lips twitch up in sleep and kiss the corner of her smile, knowing she’s dreaming of her.

_The tune that is yours and mine to play upon this earth,_

_We'll play it out the best we know, whatever it is worth,_

_What's lost is lost, we can't regain what went down in the flood,_

_But happiness to me is you and I love you more than blood._

Plenty of people still hated her, would always hate her; the Ministry would never fully let her out of their sight. She didn’t care, she deserved that much. Hermione’s was the only acceptance she craved (though the steel in her little sisters’ eyes would never fully fade, and would always sting). In the beginning, even before she knew she loved her, she feared she’d lose her every day, and lashed out accordingly, trying to drive the girl away on purpose before she could do it by mistake. But Hermione never wavered. She stayed, infuriatingly patient, an anchor in Bella’s tempest of wounded self-hatred, the vestiges of her old self putting up a fight as they died inside her, hideous fetid water evaporating in the sunlight that was Hermione.

The apologies were seldom spoken aloud. What would they mean, compared to the contrition in her actions? What greater penance could she serve than the one she lived every day, the one that felt too much like a reward? Why speak what was evident in every kiss, showered onto forehead and eyelids and cheeks and sweet neck and soft lips on her face and between her legs — _I’m different now. You changed me. I love you. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

_It's never been my duty to remake the world at large,_

_Nor is it my intention to sound a battle charge,_

_'Cause I love you more than all of that with a love that doesn't bend,_

_And if there is eternity I'd love you there again._

Just because she _would_ do it all again doesn’t mean she _wants_ to. Her passion and intensity had been repurposed, channeled into something else — into her wife, her children; keeping them safe, keeping them happy. The precious thing she’s built with Hermione is something wholly new to her, but sometimes, when she trains their children in the garden (strictly basic spells; mostly defensive; absolutely _no_ hexes as far as her wife is concerned) she feels familiar flashes of her own childhood rush back: three little girls chasing each other, racing on horses and broomsticks, war nothing but a word in their history lessons.

Her heart, if it doesn’t quite break, at least splinters a bit, to think of what they might have been. To think of tea on Sundays and children around their ankles, to think of a world in which they could see how happy Hermione made her, how much she’d changed for her; a world in which she could kiss her wife among their family without her sisters — one widowed, one disgraced — turning away in bitterness and envy. She couldn’t begrudge them, because she often felt similarly stunned herself: how did _Bellatrix,_ of all three, end up the only one with a family intact?

Even on good nights, the rare holiday where they’ll stay for a glass of wine after dinner, she can feel the chasm between them, vast and unbridgeable, even as her sweet Hermione diffuses the tension as best she can — _“We should really do this more often,” “I heard Draco got promoted; that’s wonderful,” “Maybe he and Teddy could join us next time, the children ought to know their cousins better.”_

Bella takes comfort in the knowledge that their children will never have to make the sacrifices she and her sisters made, each locked in a cursed path they were far too young to have freely chosen. Their children will never have to wonder what might have been.

_Oh, can't you see that you were born to stand by my side_

_And I was born to be with you, you were born to be my bride,_

_You're the other half of what I am, you're the missing piece_

_And I love you more than ever with that love that doesn't cease._

Bellatrix can still scarcely believe it — when she looks at their children, really looks at them, and sees the mosaic of their faces reflected back at her; or when a furtive photo of them at King’s Cross gets splashed across the _Prophet;_ she still can’t believe that this is her life, that Hermione is her wife. Sometimes she stares at their image so long she disassociates. They make a beautiful couple, and their children more gorgeous still; she knows this, even if she sometimes wishes she were ten years younger. (She regains her confidence when she remembers that look Hermione gave her the first time she wore her spectacles.) And yet it feels like someone else’s life, a borrowed identity she won by cheating at a game of cards.

But when her wife gets nervous and laces their fingers together, when she speaks Bella’s name in a voice soaked in sleep or sex or other tenderness, when Bellatrix lifts up her children and they cling instinctively to her, she is reminded that she is real, and as much as they are her world, she is theirs.

_You turn the tide on me each day and teach my eyes to see,_

_Just bein' next to you is a natural thing for me_

_And I could never let you go, no matter what goes on,_

_'Cause I love you more than ever now that the past is gone._

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics are from "Wedding Song." I heard a cover of this song a few months ago and couldn't get it out of my head. The original is by Bob Dylan. I'm not a big fan of his myself but you have to admit he writes some damn good lyrics.


End file.
